A public multimedia system is a combination of public terminals, such as telephones and personal computers and includes a method or apparatus to administer these public terminals and a method or apparatus for hosting application computer programs on this system. The application programs that are hosted on such a system include network-driven tools such as e-mail and secure commerce transactions for online purchases. When deployed in public locations such as airport departure lounges, public thorough fares, shopping malls, banks, movie theatres and retail stores the terminals may be referred to as kiosks, booths, internet kiosks, networked multimedia kiosks, or web payphones.
These kiosks may be used to provide messaging services such as e-mail and fax, form-entry services for banks and governments, electronic commerce such as ticketing and virtual shopping malls, entertainment such as Internet access, games and chat rooms, and public utilities such as pay telephony.
The information age places new demands on people to be "connected" to various networks, both public and private. People not connected to these networks through travel, time constraints, or financial resources, may be placed in economic or social disadvantage. Public multimedia systems, can reliably provide these vital connections to travellers and to those without the necessary equipment to access theses information networks.
Various services can be provided to kiosk users. Some services, such as on-line maps or guidebooks, may be provided free-of-charge. Other services, known as loyalty programs, may be provided free-of-charge to identified customers of the service providers. Other services, such as e-mail, may require the kiosk user to pay for use of the services. These pay-per-use services include not only e-mail, but event ticketing, provision of proprietary information to the kiosk user, games, Internet access and printing materials associated with these services.
Individuals who use pay-per-use services can be charged different rates for different services. For example, Internet access could be charged at a different rate than reading or writing e-mail.
As well, it would be desirable when charging a fee for network-based services, to take into account the data throughput on the network when billing for services.
More generally, it would be desirable to offer a number of different billing options and features in pay-per-use services hosted by public multimedia systems.